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T O P I C R E V I E W

413 is in

I have Deke Slayton's original photo ID security badge. The badge was the first NASA badge issued to Slayton for access to the facilities at Cape Canaveral following his selection as an astronaut. It is signed by Slayton on the back of the badge.

Curiously, he signed it in a style similar to his most common signature "D K Slayton" with the exception that the two periods in his initials are both shaped as a lower case letter "e", thus spelling out his nickname "DeKe" in full.

To date, I believe I have only seen this signature style used in two other instances. One was on a personal letter to Hal Collins upon his retirement (shown below).

I was wondering if any other collectSPACE members have seen or have examples of this Slayton signature variant in their collections.

Steve Zarelli

Really neat. Thanks for sharing!

spaceman1953

Maybe that variant (what a great new word for me!) was an intent of Deke's. (He said I could call him that when we met one day!)

Well-known Notre Dame Men's basketball coach, Digger Phelps, will only sign as "Digger" when you chase him down for an autograph. A collecting-friend of mine, said he asked him one day to sign Richard Phelps, as that is his name, and he said absolutely, no-how, no-way... that would be his legal signature and he was not going to sign that on stuff!

413 is in

Hmmm. From the response to this post, it appears that this signature variant is not too commonly seen. I'm still looking for other examples. Let me know if you've seen one.

Apollo-Soyuz

I have a few similar Slayton signatures. These were obtained in the 1975-80 time frame.

Apollo-Soyuz

Here are some more Slayton signatures I received over the years. Slayton's signature stayed consistent over the years he was signing.

Apollo-Soyuz

MarylandSpace

Could the e's be round periods? Just an observation...

413 is in

Interesting theory but on the personal letter shown above to one of Slayton's work associates, addressed to "Hal" not "Harold", I doubt that Slayton would have signed simply with only his first two initials, D. K., hence essentially signing the letter as Donald Kent. If Slayton was just using his initials to sign I would think that he would include all three of his initials. DKS.